With bilateral peace talks scheduled to resume in Washington next Monday, the big question here is whether the Palestinian delegation will attend.
According to Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi, they will not show up on Feb. 24 because Israel has arrested two of the West Bank Palestinians scheduled to go with the delegation.
In Washington, the U.S. State Department announced Tuesday that the Palestinians were “suspending their travel plans” because of the Israeli arrests.
But in the Syrian capital of Damascus, a visiting Palestine Liberation Organization official Yasir Abed Rabbo, said the Palestinians would show up despite the detentions.
His statement was confirmed in Washington by Khalil Jahshan, executive director of the National Association of Arab Americans, who said that despite their “complaint to the world community” over the detentions, the Palestinians would be there for the talks.
According to Jahshan, the Palestinian leaders in Jerusalem simply “wanted it known before the world community that there is this form of harassment. The Israelis have gone out of their way to harass the delegation,” he said.
The conflicting statements on the Palestinian intentions appear to reflect the tug-of-war that has emerged in recent months between the indigenous Palestinian leadership in the administered territories and Yasir Arafat’s PLO, 2,000 miles away in Tunis, which is officially barred from the peace process but seems to be trying to pull strings nevertheless.
U.S. URGES PALESTINIANS TO ATTEND
Jahshan indicated that in instances of conflicting statements, those from PLO officials were the more authoritative.
Palestinian leaders in the territories on Tuesday received an order from PLO headquarters in Tunis to attend the fourth round of talks in Washington, despite the arrests.
The order from Tunis came just hours after Ashrawi told a news conference in East Jerusalem that the delegation would “suspend” their participation in the peace talks.
The reason, she said, was the detention of Mohammad Horani and Jamal Shobaki, both from Hebron.
Horani was to become a member of the advisory council that accompanies the official delegation, though is not part of it. Shobaki was to join the Palestinian delegation itself.
Its membership is rotated periodically at the insistence of the PLO, in order not to create a permanent body of Palestinians from the territories who could emerge as an alternative to the PLO leadership.
The two detainees are not major figures in the context of Palestinian politics. But the local Palestinian leaders regard their arrests without charges or trial as a provocation by Israel.
In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, urged the Palestinians to “act in their broader interests by pursuing peace negotiations” with the Israelis next week in the U.S. capital.
He said that all of the delegations had previously informed the United States they would be attending the Feb. 24 talks.
Boucher expressed moral support for the plight of the two Palestinians, saying “the United States has long opposed the practice of administrative detention as it pertains to the treatment of inhabitants of the occupied territories.”
CANNOT TALK PEACE AND PRACTICE TERROR
On another issue of timing, Boucher said the beginning on March 4 of the Moslem holy month of Ramadan would have no effect on the convening of the peace talks.
Jahshan said that the talks could continue to take place during that month, although the need to pray would restrict the number of negotiating hours each day.
For their part, the local Palestinians are exerting heavy pressure on the United States to intervene for the release of the two detainees.
The Israeli authorities insist they are suspected of terrorist activities against Israel and their arrest therefore was justified.
Deputy Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was spokesman for the Israeli delegation at the last round of bilateral talks, took a tough line. He reiterated Israel’s familiar claim that the Palestinians support terrorism while talking peace.
That they cannot do, said Netanyahu. He said the detainees were charged with “organizing terror, criminal actions against Israelis in Israel.
“The Palestinian delegation cannot have it both ways,” Netanyahu said. “They cannot talk of peace in the West, in Washington, and condone and, in fact, encourage terror here in the East, in Israel. It cannot be terror and peace, it has to be one or the other.”
“We hope they will choose peace,” he added.
(JTA correspondent Howard Rosenberg in Washington contributed to this report.)
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